


Aerobics is Easier at 3 AM

by poisns



Series: Klaus the Temporary Hobby Enthusiast [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Drabble, Gen, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, No Beta, One Shot, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Sibling Bonding, alternate universe - no apocolypse, five can be mean but diego ain't having it, idk how to tag this?, in this house we get along, no ben sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisns/pseuds/poisns
Summary: It was no secret that Number Five constantly acted as if his metaphorical tether was coming to an end.Five is, once again, disgruntled by Klaus' antics, but Diego is having none of it.





	Aerobics is Easier at 3 AM

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey hey. another one, woo. was going to post this weeks ago but i forgot to since exams have been rough. set a year after the apocalypse because that's how i like it. please kudos and comment if you wish.

It was no secret that Number Five constantly acted as if his metaphorical tether was coming to an end. Anyone that had met him (or hadn’t, however, it would take no more than a five-second once-over of his face from a stranger for them to say ‘actually, I’d rather not’ if they were asked to shake his hand) would know that said tether was permanently teetering on _dangerously short._ Why? It could be several things:

Possessing the knowledge and (uncommon) experiences of a fifty-nine-year-old brainiac was jarring. So jarring, in fact, that Five’s need to incessantly correct and interrupt those whose minds didn’t even come close in comparison to the complexity of his was just second nature.

Being caged in as a skinny, muscle-deficient, fourteen-year-old was _slightly_ bothersome. Although it wasn’t as if he had been thrown into a random body, it still technically belonged to him so he couldn’t grill his younger self too much, but it still granted him the power of delivering snide comments about the likes of it when he wanted to.

Both of those things couldn’t amount to the pit of fierce resentment that boiled inside of him when someone treated him the age that he looked. He had no issue whatsoever with threatening his siblings with imminent death if they so much as touched his hair in a playful manner, or if they talked to him like he was three. Strangers? They never handled it well. Take the time he was at the grocery store with Allison. He was really only there for the sole purpose of holding the list and reading things out to her as she paced along the aisles. Fifty solid minutes of aimlessly pottering around anywhere could drive the average person mad, but Five? Eyes were rolling, his tongue was clicking, feet were tapping against the marbled ground impatiently. An old woman had, unfortunately, made a comment directed towards Five regarding children and their stinking attitudes, and he would be damned if he were to walk away without saying a single thing to her.

To condense the story down to the raw details, he had told her to shove _something_ up _somewhere_ , which had left her gaping in horror as he trailed behind Allison (who hadn’t said a thing, a wise move on her part) with the smuggest look cemented onto his face.

So _that_ was why Five’s metaphorical tether was teetering on the edge of ‘non-existent’.

He was familiar with the different ways that he was able to ‘cool off’, or ‘chill the hell out’, as Klaus had always put it. He wouldn’t ever admit to taking a single bit of the advice dished helpfully out to him by his siblings and putting it to practise, but he did indeed take the advice from his siblings and put it into practice. Reading was efficient, Five knew that, but he hadn’t ever read to calm himself down. Reading had been associated with panic, frantically trying to search for answers to pull himself out of the deep end. But, alas, like many other times (more times than he would dare to admit) he had found himself being completely and utterly misconstrued. Reading _was_ relaxing, and it _did_ help him focus his mind onto other things that were far more light-hearted than the thoughts that clouded his head on the daily.

Vanya had kindly given him some of the books that had started to collect dust on her shelves because she had read them too many times and thought that they needed to be passed onto someone else. One of those books being about an eldritch clown that snacked on young children as a hobby. Five didn’t even bother denying that reading it through and through had made him less likely to take a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or even let his foot dangle a centimetre off the mattress without imagining a white-gloved hand grasping at his toes. It was a good book, nevertheless.

Reading, though, didn’t distract him from the continuous tapping and thumping coming from beyond the hallway. Just as an old man would, Five grumbled under his breath, purely to himself, but loud enough so that the offender could hear him.

“It’s three in the morning… who the _hell_ is up at three in the morning…” Five muttered, snapping his book shut and slamming it into the bedsheets. _Well, besides me, but that was purely rhetorical._

The thumping didn’t cease. Five suddenly felt uneasy. The probability of it being someone prohibited from entering the house - so, _everyone_ but eight - was relatively high. He wouldn’t ever put it past someone if they were to break in and go snooping around his father’s things, it was to be expected, and the threat was always there. But, if it _was_ someone who wasn’t allowed to enter the academy, why hadn’t he immediately risen out of bed and jumped to the nearest dark corner to get a better look? Nerves, maybe? Or, he was so relaxed from reading that-

_Thump, tap, tap… tap, tap, thump._

Was the intruder… dancing? There seemed to be a rhythm going, and Five wasn’t that old that he couldn’t recognise a consistent and deliberate beat. Now, any qualms he had about the unknown presence being somebody dangerous had dissipated. Five pushed himself out of bed forcefully and dragged his hands down his face. Boy, was he over it.

Venturing out - with caution- into the hallway was simple, bar the effort needed to stop the floorboards from screaming out under the pressure of Five’s feet, which would absolutely wake up anyone who happened to be sleeping. If they ever were, that was, with all the stomping that reverberated throughout the entire house like drum and bass music.

The moment that Five had stepped out of his bedroom and into the hall, it was painfully clear as to where the racket was coming from;

Klaus’ room.

Five scoffed. “Of course.”

Klaus was the master of creating chaos at times where chaos didn’t need to be created. Five remembered the time that he and Allison were coming back from checking out a flea market downtown, and the moment that they had walked into the house, Klaus glared at them like a startled deer caught in headlights, his hands dug into a (far too) wet lump of clay on a pottery wheel that was flicking grey water everywhere.

_‘The living room? Why?!’_ Five had asked, face reddened. His answer was a shrug and a harmless pout, his brother then turning back to the supposedly relaxing craft that he had managed to make look so chaotic. Klaus had learned later on that day that throwing slabs of sopping wet clay on the fastest setting wasn’t something to practise inside the house when Luther had yelled out the moment he sat in said slab the next morning. He had smushed it all the way into the inner linings of the sofa, and Klaus had given the exact same look as he did to Five the day before. _‘I’m learning, Number One. Oh, by the way, you have clay up your crack.'_

The remark about learning was utter crap, but hardly anything his brother came out with had any sort of sentiment behind it.

Five didn’t hesitate to twist the doorknob and push Klaus’ bedroom door open. When he did, he wished he hadn’t for the sake of not being able to see anything else when he closed his eyes.

He was almost right about the dancing - if whatever Klaus was doing could be classed as dancing.

His brother was kitted out in neon from head to toe. A green headband had pushed his curls back from his forehead, which was glistening with pure sweat even in the dim light of his room. In front of him was a small television with a tape of a grainy video of three ladies demonstrating a workout. Klaus was hitting the moves one after the other, kicking his legs out in front of him, which made Five’s eyes widen in surprise at how hard he was going at three in the morning,

Five had to avert his eyes from the luminescent leggings on Klaus’ lower half the moment the lunges started.

“Klaus?” Five called out, partially quiet, but really, loud enough for his voice to be heard over the panting and strained grunts. Klaus hadn’t heard Five enter the room in the first place and surely came as a surprise to see him stood with bowed legs and eyebrows furrowed in the doorway.

“Oh, goodness, my little Five! I didn’t hear you knock… sort of an invasion of my privacy, don’t you think?” Klaus panted. He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“Hardly. You pee with the door wide open. Not to mention the copious amount of time’s I’ve accidentally seen you tearing strips of wax off of your ass.”

Klaus straightened up and made a face. “Yeah, well, I never told you to look,” he puffed out his cheeks and let out a large gust of air that Five felt tickle his face, “wanna join? These lovely ladies sure know how to get your lungs working, I’ll tell you that.”

“Honestly?” Five started, and Klaus’ eyes widened - _as if_ Five would accept his offer to sweat horrendously to an 80’s aerobic workout tape, “No, I don’t.”

Klaus made a disappointed noise. ”Oh, well, alright.” He peeked at Five through his eyelashes, and Five knew _immediately_ what _that_ look meant.

_“No,_ absolutely not. I refuse to succumb to your childish pleas, Klaus.”

The moment Five had finished talking, heavy footsteps came up the stairs, and a few seconds later, a head peeked from behind the wall, the light shining on their face. It was Diego, and he was squinting at Klaus, hand in front of his face as if he was blocking the sun from his eyes.

“Fuck me, Klaus, why? What for?” The lack of the subject in question made Five’s lip turn up slightly in a smirk, but it was totally obvious that his brother was directing the questions towards the heinous colours Klaus was wearing. Klaus just squinted right back at him, mouth agape and hands on his hips.

“Oh, it’s Diego! Hey, Go-Go, how’s it?” He waved at the other man with his _Hello_ hand, “Fancy accompanying me in the last fifteen minutes of this riveting 80’s workout? I promise you, you’ll sleep like a baby who’s just hit the elliptical for an hour.”

Diego made a face, most likely at the image of a baby using workout equipment unsupervised, but he shrugged his shoulders and dropped his backpack in the doorway with a thud. “Got another headband? I need absorption.”

Klaus handed Diego a neon pink bundle of fabric and skipped to the doorway. “I’ll be back in a jiff, my bladder yearns for release,” he disappeared out of view for a second, but popped his head around the corner, “behave, boys!”

Five was still stood at the foot of Klaus’ bed, and it was now his turn to let his jaw drop, wondering _why the hell_ Diego was so keen to partake in one of Klaus’ fad enrichment activities. More so the fact that Diego was serious and seemed permanently over Klaus’ crap, but there he was, stretching a neon pink headband across his forehead and pulling matching leg warmers over his calves.

“Oh, you’re here. Hey, little man.” Diego looked him up and down briefly, then turned away to take off his sweater.

“Don’t-” Five cut himself off with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, “...why are you encouraging him? Every day he has a new stupid obsession and it’s getting frustrating to have to deal with it.”

Diego tugged his sweater over his head and tossed it onto Klaus’ bed. He straightened his spine as he faced Five, immediately become a heck of a lot taller, most likely to come across as intimidating, which Five had experienced enough of to not let it bother him.

“Because,” he started slowly, “he wants nothing but to be around his family. Do you think I wanted to drive him six hours across the country to go to that fuckin’ arts and crafts convention last month? No, I really didn’t.” Diego was closer to Five, so much to the point where Five could feel each word leave his mouth and hit the skin on his face. “What I _did_ want is for him to feel like he’s wanted. That’s what being a good brother is; doing whatever you have to to make them happy. Even if it means that you have to endure him trying to play the flute at six in the morning.”

Diego scanned Five’s expression, ultimately coming away with nothing since he sighed through his nose long and hard, and turned away to pick up yet another bundle of colour from Klaus’ chair.

“Now,” Diego held out the fabric to Five, “put this shit on _quickly_ , and try to look enthusiastic about it.”

When Klaus came back into the room, his face lit up brighter than the colours he was wearing when he saw Diego _and_ Five stood in the middle of his room wearing sweatbands and leg warmers.

“Oh, goody!” He clapped his hands together, “Five had a change of heart! Oh, I’m so excited.”

The way that Diego looked at Five out of the corner of his eye made him feel unpleasant, but he couldn’t think about it for much longer because Klaus was pressing play on the television, and the three women that were once still were jumping up and down to the rhythm of the song.

“Are we ready, girls?” Klaus asked, forcing a lisp, and Five found it hard to roll his eyes, so he settled for a half smile as he adjusted his headband.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

His tether was still alarmingly short, but Five could make it withstand another fifteen minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> if you're reading these end notes, good on you. nothing much to say apart from that i hoped you enjoyed it. please do let me know if you all think i should continue with the klaus-and-his-weird-hobbies trope (touch into the pottery scenario maybe?). AND, if you have an idea, feel free to inspire me. thank you all. x


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